


Queen and Country 2/2

by mevennen



Series: Queen and Country [2]
Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 09:27:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22244845
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mevennen/pseuds/mevennen
Summary: The second and last part of this story. This series follows - loosely - actual British politics, so you might like to read the preceding stories.
Series: Queen and Country [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1568317
Comments: 4
Kudos: 9





	Queen and Country 2/2

Once at the office, Mallory got his head down and started work on a pile of papers. Ideal time to do it. Moneypenny was not yet in, and every politician had other things on his or her mind and would not be inclined to bother the head of the Secret Intelligence Service today. This suited Mallory down to the ground. He could get on…he might even go downstairs later on and have elevenses… His concentration narrowed down to the matters on his desk and his face wore the faint trace of a smile.

At least, until his phone rang. 

“Mallory?”

“Ma’am?” 

“I want you to know that I have decided to go ahead. With The Plan!”

“The plan?”

“The plan I told you about! At Balmoral.”

_Ohgod_

“Ah. That plan.”

“Have you – set anything up? I hope you have, young man. I thought I had made myself clear.”

“Yes, ma’am. Quite clear. Crystal, in fact. The operative is on standby.”

“Excellent! I wish you to activate him!”

“Now?” _Don’t go into the whole freelancer thing_. 

“As soon as the election is over. I’m expecting a change of Prime Minister anyway so it will all come out in the wash. But this has become…personal.”

A pause.

“Mallory?”

“Ma’am? I’m still here.”

“Good. See to it, won’t you?” 

So he did.

*

Some distance away, the Prime Minister was being photographed with a small pallid dog. He had taken it with him to the polling station. Some people scowled at him as he emerged, he noted, but that was only to be expected, bit of a bad show but they were probably Labour voters. That girl, though! She wasn’t scowling. She gave him a big smile and she was definitely a looker. Cor, thought the PM. In that cowl-necked cashmere sweater and pencil skirt, silk stockings (he bet they were stockings) and high heels, she looked slightly as though she had stepped out of the late nineteen fifties. Nothing prim about this one, though. Big blue eyes and honey blonde hair piled on top of her head. And the smile was warm. 

Horace Ronson was proud of his Turkish blood, even if it was only a trace. It was expansive, generous. It spoke to him of harems and odalisques. If he’d ever seen anyone who looked like an odalisque, it was this girl. And she was looking at him, too, to the extent that she stumbled slightly and dropped her handbag. The contents spilled all over the pavement, lipstick, phone, keys. She gave a little squeak of distress. The PM seized the day with both hands. He sprang forwards. 

“Allow me!”

“Oh, thank you so much,” she breathed. As he stood up, clutching the contents of her bag, she brushed against him. 

“Oh! I’m so sorry. I’m so clumsy today! It's these stupid shoes. They’re new.”

“Quite all right! Not a problem! And they do look rather lovely. The shoes, I mean.” 

“I really ought to thank you properly,” she breathed.

Horace Ronson laughed. “Well, you know where I live!”

She gave a sultry smile. “I certainly do.”

The papped photo of the PM gallantly assisting a damsel in distress made it into the Daily Mail in due course, although sadly the flack hadn’t managed to capture an image of her, only of Horace groveling on the pavement. Mallory saw it, in his morning perusal of all the main papers, but flicked past, thinking little of it. 

The PM himself was pleased. And somehow he didn’t think this would be the last time he set eyes on that enchanting young woman. 

In this, Horace Ronson was correct.

*

Mallory woke early on Friday morning and the first thing he did was to grope for his phone. Snatching it from the nightstand, he sank back on the pillow, took a look at the BBC news page and lay staring into the little screen, stunned. Then the phone vibrated.

“Mallory.”

“Five years,” his elder brother’s voice said, hollowly, into his ear. “Have you seen the results? We’ve got him for another _five years_.”

Roderick Mallory, like most hereditary peers, was a long term member of the Conservative Party; a political entity which had just won its biggest majority in an election since 1987. 

He sounded as though someone had died. 

“Talk later,” Mallory said. 

Mallory had not got to the position of Britain’s spymaster by being entirely tactless, although there were people who had professed surprise that he had once managed to maintain cover as a diplomat for several years. Members of his own family were among them, an attitude which Mallory tried to rise above. However, if ever diplomacy was called for, it was now. First came congratulations to Horace Ronson, not by text, but by letter. Mallory got out of bed in order to write this, on excellent quality writing paper, with the aid of a fountain pen and gritted teeth. Having summoned a courier to deliver this missive, only then did he get dressed.

On his way to the Tube, he passed the young woman again. 

“Oh, hullo.”

“What d’you make of it all, then?” She held out an early copy of the Daily Mail. Mallory took one look at the screaming headlines and winced. “Something to read on the train, sir?”

“I suppose we’ll just have to wait and see,” Mallory said, meeting her eye. 

It was a long and rather tiresome day, of which the highlight was a brief meeting with Bond, fresh from Heathrow. Since Bond was not Mallory’s favourite operative, that this _was_ a highlight spoke volumes. 

Later, reluctantly, he made his way to Downing Street to the compulsory early evening drinks reception. 

“Mallory, you old dog!” A Prime Ministerial slap between the shoulder blades nearly swept him through a nearby sash window. Briefly, he went into that inner place known to anyone who has ever served in the special forces: a place from which a killing blow can be delivered. Or not. Mallory did not define himself as a Christian but a prayer did fleetingly come to mind: _lead me not into temptation, O Lord_.

A lot of the people at the party, including the PM himself, looked genuinely ecstatic. Some, however, wore a sort of grimace on their tired countenances, rather than a smile, and there was a glassy quality to their eyes that Mallory did not identify as the result of too much Bollinger. He caught sight of himself in a long mirror in a hallway and saw without surprise that he had joined their number.

“Ah, Sir Gareth!” A senior member of the upper House lurched towards him down the stairs. “Great day, what! Great day! Where’s your brother? Don’t see old Rodders here.”

“’Fraid he’s got flu,” Mallory lied. He had no idea where the Duke might be, although at home and hiding under the bed seemed a distinct possibility. Locked in the airing cupboard? Lurking in the coalshed? Mallory felt like doing one of these things himself.

“Terrible shame, be good to see him in our hour of triumph, tell him whisky and lemon. Never fails. Capital.” The peer rumbled away, giving Mallory the impression that he had recently been reanimated by a lightning bolt.

Like so many members of the House of Lords.

“Good evening, sir. Would you care for more champagne?” A young woman, demure in black, appeared at his elbow. Mallory smiled: she was young, with thick, honey coloured hair and blue eyes. Then he looked again.

“That’s – that would be very nice.”

“Of course, sir.” She refilled his drink and vanished in the direction of the main reception room. Mallory stared thoughtfully after her. He did not stay long after that.

*

London is never dark, but there was no moon that night, and a lot of cloud. In a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park, a young woman dressed slowly and methodically in front of a mirror. She regarded her reflection appraisingly, without vanity. First tights, then a black sports bra, then a thin silk vest. Then black trousers and a night-dark top, zipped tightly up. Black combat boots followed. She coiled her hair on top of her head, concealing the little dumb-bell shaped weapon in the thick roll of her hair. Then she did a couple of stretches and reached for the phone.

“Are you ready?”

“I’m always ready, Princess.” The voice on the other end was gravelly and definitely from within the radius of Bow Bells. She smiled.

“I’ll see you downstairs.” 

She did not mean in the lobby, under the eye of the CCTV cameras. Instead she went over the side of the back balcony, abseiling swiftly down into the ornamental bushes of the communal garden. A shadow took her hand as she landed. Then two shadows flitted into the city night.

*

Mallory sat in front of the TV, a Scotch in hand. He didn’t really need it after the champagne, but it was fleetingly tempting to finish the bottle. School night, though. He had not bothered to turn the television on. Newsnight, for once, was unappealing. He ought to think about turning in, trying to get some sleep… Then the doorbell buzzed. Mallory hesitated, then ran down to open it. Who the hell, at this time of night? But his elder brother was standing on the step, looking uncharacteristically disheveled.

“Rod. Well done on bunking the reception. You didn’t miss much.”

“Never mind that. I need to speak to you,” his brother said. “In person. Not here.”

It was not by coincidence that there was a graveyard close to Mallory’s place. They slipped into it like a couple of vampires and took refuge beneath an overhanging yew.

“I’ve just had a phone call,” the Duke hissed. “She wants to call it off! In fact, she has called it off. She says she’s spoken to your operative directly.”

“What? How did Her Maj – I mean, how did she get hold of her?”

“I thought your operative was a him! That man I hit with the umbrella at Balmoral. That was a man, wasn’t it?”

“Yes! That was a man! But I thought it best to hire out, use a freelancer, so we’re not using him for this mission.” All sorts of illegal in that statement: the Duke had high security clearance, but not technically that high. But Mallory would trust his brother to the grave and since Roderick was directly in the confidence of – well, best not even think it. Talk about orders from the top, though. 

“Fuck!” And Roderick almost never swore. He ran a hand through his hair. “She said she had been thinking about it and since the election was the will of the people and if Horace was what they wanted, then Horace was what they should have, regardless of her own feelings about him.”

“She could have called me this morning when the election results were through! Jesus! And why didn’t she phone me once she’d changed her mind?”

“I think she was a bit embarrassed. Easier to ring me, maybe, since she’d called your dog off. Or what she thought was your dog. She said she’d been dithering.”

Mallory took a deep, deep breath. She was an old lady, after all. Perhaps if he reached the age of 93 and didn’t succumb to a massive coronary before that, which was feeling increasingly unlikely, he might dither, too.

“I need to make a phone call.”

But the person on the end of that call did not reply.

*

“I went in earlier, Princess. Just as you told me to. Cheeky chappy heating engineer. Fixed the knocking sound in the pipe. The girlfriend said it was nice to see a proper British workman for a change.”

A breath of a laugh. “You should have put on a Polish accent and called yourself Bogdan or something. I went in myself, pretended to be a waitress. Snitched his spare passcode from his pocket this morning and got in the back door for the reception. And the thermostat?”

“Yeah, sorted. They’ll be boiling like lobsters up there in a minute.”

As if on cue, one of the sash windows was flung up and a voice said, “Can’t understand why it’s so _hot_. Must be global warming!”

M’s freelancer now knew exactly which sash window it was, too. The PM had been pleased to see her again at the reception, and had greeted her effusively. 

“Hope your handbag’s survived! Didn’t know you were one of the caterers!”

She had smiled at him. “Maybe it was just a ruse to get into the building.” She lowered her gaze and caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “And to see you again.”

He had laughed like a drain at that. 

“Actually,” she went on, “Seriously, I do a lot of Whitehall events like this. Ask Henry Vesey-Hall. He’ll tell you. But I’m only slightly joking.”

Vesey-Hall was in charge of Downing Street receptions, a weasel-faced minor aristo whom she had researched with care. But the PM wouldn’t have time to check, even if he felt like it.

Horace showed signs of wanting to take the conversation further but his mad-eyed senior aide had dragged him away at that point to ask him a question, leaving her to take a thorough look at the layout of Number 10, its exits and entrances. And now here they were. Ready to rock and roll. 

“Ladies first,” her associate said.

She reached the bottom of the drainpipe with lightning speed, hands gripping the metal, tensing to shin up it. She could hear the girlfriend moving about in the room above but then the footsteps faded. A familiar booming voice came from deeper in the house. 

“Might as well open another bottle, eh?”

In a moment she would be up onto the sill and through the window and – 

and she felt it rather than heard it. They were more in tune than any lovers would ever be. She sensed it in her gut when her companion collapsed behind her, though he had made no sound.

Shit. She glanced quickly around. They had company. She saw a man’s balaclava’d head lift up over a prone form. He dodged quickly away but she knew where he was moving to and her foot came up as her body spun and from her coil of hair she snatched the little dumbbell weapon and once she had taken him down she would be up through the window and…

…and it was like stepping into a mantrap. Needles closed on her ankle and she stifled a cry. But it was just enough to distract her. The man was on top of her then, both of them falling into the shrubbery. She spat out a mouthful of laurel but the needles had gone away. Her ankle stung. Something gave an eldritch yell.

“You need to abort, now,” the man with the balaclava whispered into her ear. “Abandon mission! I repeat, abort! M’s orders!”

The voice had a convincing urgency. She grew very still. From above, a voice said, 

“What the hell – oh, it’s that bloody cat again. Larry! Drop that, whatever it is! You’re not bringing it in here this time!”

And the sash window rattled shut.

*

An hour later; a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park

“Blimey, you don’t half pack a wallop, Mr Bond.” The Cockney voice was ruefully admiring. 

“Yes. Sorry about that. I was running out of time. You were a lot quicker than I thought you’d be. Take it as payback for Tangiers.”

“For - ? Oh, yeah, I thought I’d seen you somewhere before. Didn't we leave you in a crate at the bottom of the harbor?”

“Briefly.”

“No hard feelings, eh?”

“None at all.”

“Another Scotch, Mr Bond?” Now that they were back at the penthouse, she had changed out of her combat gear into a skirt and a pretty top. 

“Thanks. Why not?”

“And Mr Q. Would you like another cup of tea? I have some chamomile, as well as the Lapsang.”

“Oh, that sounds lovely. At this time of night I do have to be a little careful of my caffeine intake. Also, I’m the designated driver.”

“I totally understand.” 

“Would _you_ like some more ice? There are some frozen peas in the top of the fridge.”

“No, cheers all the same, Princess. I will have another whisky, though.”

“If you’ve got a mild concussion – “ Q was anxious.

“No, he’d say if he had.” She smiled. “We’re really much more sensible than we appear. Here you go, Mr Bond. You deserve it. I’m very grateful.”

“I’m just glad we got there in time. Good thing Her Maj – I mean, my superior, contacted me. Under the impression I’d been the one assigned to the mission, as she originally requested. Finally managed to get hold of M – I think he was trying to ring you - and told him that Q and I would get down to Number 10 before anything irreversible happened.”

She sighed. “A good thing you stopped me. I must say, I didn’t think living in a monarchy would be so exciting. Or so, well, hands on. I grew up in a dictatorship, you see. And a warzone, shortly after that. I’m not used to kingdoms.”

Bond gave her an appraising glance. “Middle East? Eastern Europe? South America?”

“Something like that. Would you like another refill? We got this up in the Highlands – it’s a special edition and I think it’s rather nicely peaty, myself…”

*

_Late December_

Mallory returned to the office just before the New Year. It was good to be back in the saddle. He congratulated himself on having survived the festive season: not just the aborted assassination escapade, but on a more minor level the office Christmas party, which for various reasons had also proved something of an ordeal, if of a lesser magnitude. But the family gathering had been actually pleasant, now that Rod had finally come to his senses earlier in December and booted the Duchess out of the ancestral hall. Mallory cordially loathed his sister in law. Since the booting had been precipitated by her husband returning home unexpectedly and finding her in her bedroom under the local UKIP candidate, none of Roderick’s children were speaking either to their mother or of her and it was as though she had never been. 

“Should have done it years ago,” the Duke confessed to his brother, over a quiet pint in the local on Boxing Day. The 16th century rafters were decked with holly and tinsel, the hunt meet milled outside, horses and hounds; it was all very English.

“Well, you’ve done it now,” Mallory said. “Cheers.”

“When I told Ken Clarke - about Fiona and that dreadful man from UKIP - he looked at me for quite a long time and then said “And which was worse?” Well, there was an obvious answer to that.”

“Oh, definitely. One could forgive adultery, after all.”

“This election has been somewhat seismic all round, really.”

“Well,” his brother remarked, taking a sip of his pint. “In one respect, we have dodged a bullet. At least, perhaps it is not us who have dodged it. If that was grammatical. It might not have been.”

“Probably not.” Roderick nodded. Mallory did not need to say more. Then the Duke’s phone rang. He glanced at it.

“Gareth!”

In the pub car park, they found an isolated spot. The Duke held the phone up so that Mallory could hear.

“Is that my godson? Roderick!” said a familiar voice. They had last heard it only yesterday, delivering a Christmas message from the television, at 3 o’clock. “I want to speak to you! You know the thing? The thing I asked your brother to arrange before Christmas? That we had to call orf?”

“Yes, ma’am. Gareth is here with me.”

“Ah, good! Gareth, I understand from Mr Bond that your young lady was most satisfactory and no harm done. He has filled me in, I think the term is?”

Mallory nearly said, “Has he, indeed?” But he murmured something anodyne instead. 

“Is she still available? Your freelancer?”

“I believe so, ma’am,” Mallory said, heart sinking towards the soles of his second best Loakes. His eyes met Roderick’s. Alarm was mirrored in both.

“Because I have another assignment for her. Possibly several. Do you think she could deal with three people? In different locations?”

*

In a pub on the banks of the river Thames, glasses softly clink. You can see your joint reflection in the long windows: a handsome man in a casual jacket, a girl in a dark blue velvet mini dress, displaying long legs and a coil of black hair.

He has already made a suggestion, of a personal nature, on the way here in the car. You have laughed and turned the suggestion down. For now. You think M might disapprove and you would rather like to keep on the right side of M. But it might be entertaining to take up the suggestion at a later date, if circumstances ever allow. Your date doesn’t seem to mind too much about being turned down. He shouldn't take you for granted, though. 

“Mr Bond. Merry Christmas. I like this wine, don’t you? I don’t know much about wine, though. The landlord’s the expert.”

“It's very decent.” He lowers his voice. “But you ought to call me James, or I can’t toast you properly. I can’t keep calling you ‘Miss.’”

You smile at him. “Tangiers was a while ago. We’re friends now, aren’t we? On the same side. With the same boss? Office colleagues, let’s say. So you might as well call me by my first name if you want to make a toast.”

A gentle touch of his glass against yours. “To Queen and country, then, Modesty.” 

END

So! M’s freelancer is of course Modesty Blaise. If you’re thinking: but wasn’t she around in the 60s? Yes, she was – hired by the then chief of M16, Sir Gerald Tarrant. However, in the early days of the internet, I came across an interview by Peter O’Donnell, who coincidentally lived down the road from me in Brighton. Sadly, we never met. He was talking about Bond, who moves unaging through the decades, and said that you could do this with Modesty and her Cockney sidekick Willie Garvin: if Modesty had been born during a Balkan conflict, you could easily bring her story up to date. I think one of the more recent films possibly did. But I have incorporated her into the Bondverse now. By the way, I shall probably be shot for treason.


End file.
